Stardew Valley

CrystalShadow

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Apr 11, 2009
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I have no context for what stardew valley is like (haven't played or watched anyone play it).

I do know the SNES harvest moon though. That's a fun, quirky, weird spin on what, superficially seems to be a JRPG, but really, isn't.

I was quite disappointed by several later installments though, (one for the gameboy, and one for the gamecube)

My biggest complaint with the first one was perhaps that I got married and my 'wife' basically had an instant and sudden shift in both appearance and personality.

(in short, she turned from weird quirky inventor girl into generic farmer's wife - while the game did vaguely acknowledge her background by the fact she creates several inventions to help you, it still felt really weird.)

Of course, the gameboy game took out all story elements in favour of just farming, while the gamecube one just put me off with it's presentation...

Stardew valley though? I guess it could be good, if it leans more towards the kind of game the original Harvest Moon represented...
 

Amaror

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CrystalShadow said:
I have no context for what stardew valley is like (haven't played or watched anyone play it).

I do know the SNES harvest moon though. That's a fun, quirky, weird spin on what, superficially seems to be a JRPG, but really, isn't.

I was quite disappointed by several later installments though, (one for the gameboy, and one for the gamecube)

My biggest complaint with the first one was perhaps that I got married and my 'wife' basically had an instant and sudden shift in both appearance and personality.

(in short, she turned from weird quirky inventor girl into generic farmer's wife - while the game did vaguely acknowledge her background by the fact she creates several inventions to help you, it still felt really weird.)

Of course, the gameboy game took out all story elements in favour of just farming, while the gamecube one just put me off with it's presentation...

Stardew valley though? I guess it could be good, if it leans more towards the kind of game the original Harvest Moon represented...
Never played the Harvest Moon games, but I greatly enjoy Stardew Valley. Allready got 44 hours in it.
I actually just married one of the villagers and they pretty much stayed the way they were.
She does sometimes cook me something or help out a bit on the farm, but more often then not she spents most of her time with her own hobby, which is art, for which she actually got her own personal expansion of our bedroom for.
 

Dalisclock

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Tarias said:
The latter Harvest Moon games have begun including ridiculously long unskippable tutorials, taking up anywhere from the 6+ hours of Harvest Moon: A New Beginning, to the 2+ hours of Story of Seasons (which is made by the people that made all of the previous harvest moons, but can't be called that due to publisher dispute)where they drip feed you content at a snails pace, and then punish you for not running around gathering flowers all day every day by making them a requirement for part 6 of the main quest, which you can't see the requirements for until you've put 20+ hours in the game, and will then have to wait another 20+ to remedy. On top of this they have included a rather limited 100 stamina point system that abandons all ability to upgrade your maximum, which was one of the most satisfying parts of the progress for me, loved me some stamina berries.


In slightly older Harvest Moon games, such as the one on Wii, they amped up the grind to the 10th degree, taking 15+ hours of gameplay to get enough minerals to upgrade your tools to copper, and then made it two or three times longer to go to silver, and then again for gold, and then yet again for goddess level. That is 100+ hours to get a bar of goddess metal, of which you need 5. Forcing you to play a certain form of mining roulette where where you could mine forever but if you hit the wrong rock you'd be poisoned or exhausted or catch a cold. Thank goodness they reverted this change for later titles.
Thanks for that. I don't feel like I missed too much now by not playing any of the series after the first one. Sounds incredibly grindy and annoying.

I went ahead and picked it up on gog and I'll probably play it next once I'm done with the game I'm working on right now.
 

CrystalShadow

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Apr 11, 2009
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Amaror said:
CrystalShadow said:
I have no context for what stardew valley is like (haven't played or watched anyone play it).

I do know the SNES harvest moon though. That's a fun, quirky, weird spin on what, superficially seems to be a JRPG, but really, isn't.

I was quite disappointed by several later installments though, (one for the gameboy, and one for the gamecube)

My biggest complaint with the first one was perhaps that I got married and my 'wife' basically had an instant and sudden shift in both appearance and personality.

(in short, she turned from weird quirky inventor girl into generic farmer's wife - while the game did vaguely acknowledge her background by the fact she creates several inventions to help you, it still felt really weird.)

Of course, the gameboy game took out all story elements in favour of just farming, while the gamecube one just put me off with it's presentation...

Stardew valley though? I guess it could be good, if it leans more towards the kind of game the original Harvest Moon represented...
Never played the Harvest Moon games, but I greatly enjoy Stardew Valley. Allready got 44 hours in it.
I actually just married one of the villagers and they pretty much stayed the way they were.
She does sometimes cook me something or help out a bit on the farm, but more often then not she spents most of her time with her own hobby, which is art, for which she actually got her own personal expansion of our bedroom for.
Heh. That sounds a lot better handled than what Harvest moon was doing.
Though I guess in some ways that's to be expected. (we've had about 25 years, and we're comparing a game released on a modern PC to one on an equally old console)

Still, that annoyed me so much, so having it better written than that is good to hear...

undeadsuitor said:
CrystalShadow said:
(in short, she turned from weird quirky inventor girl into generic farmer's wife - while the game did vaguely acknowledge her background by the fact she creates several inventions to help you, it still felt really weird.)
I got a chuckle out of this primarily because one of the marriage candidates in Stardew Valley is... a weird quirky inventor girl. At least she keeps some of her inventor/science stuff in your house (and maybe has some science-y dialog?) Haven't actually gotten to any of the marriage stuff yet (though I know more detailed marriage content is on the devs to-do list)
Mmh. Yes. I assume the dev must've played harvest moon... I'd be very surprised if they made a game like this and weren't aware of it...

The girl in the original Harvest moon is the daughter of the shopkeep that sells you farming tools.
And her inventions are among the things you can buy. (I think the advantage of marrying her is you get those tools for free, but that's not really why I did it at the time. XD)

I think the weirdest aspect of dating in Harvest moon was that to know how much a girl liked you, you had to sneak into their bedroom either when they weren't there, or when they were asleep, and read their diary...
I mean, who actually does that? XD
 
Sep 14, 2009
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Fat_Hippo said:
So, have any other Escapists had the opportunity to play this fine game? For anyone who hasn't heard of it, the gist of it is: Harvest Moon...but for the PC. And if you haven't played Harvest Moon, it's basically a farming game with a JRPG aesthetic, and an extremely peaceful atmosphere. The last Harvest Moon I played was for the original gameboy, so I have no idea how it compares to newer Harvest Moon titles, but this game seems chock full of things to do so far compared to that.

This is definitely not a game for everyone, as the gameplay is pretty thin, but that's not really the point. If I want intense experience, I'll play League of Legends or Dark Souls. This is the kind of game I'll play when I don't feel like I can handle doing anything hard at the moment.

I'm really enjoying it, and it will probably be the game I play to simply chill out for the next few weeks. Watering some crops, chopping some wood, fishing, giving gifts to the village ladies (giggity) and making my farm look nice. It's all very therapeutic. And on top of this, you've got a nostalgic and super calm soundtrack playing through it all.


The only real complaint I have so far is that controller support is bit shoddy, so you can't really lie on a sofa or bed and play it from afar. Which would make a lot of sense for this type of game in my opinion.

So, anyone else playing it? What has your experience been so far?
just got this game yesterday and I've restarted a couple times (in these kinds of games I hate having a bad start), I've looked up starter guides and I think I've got that part down, but I've yet to find *any* answers online for a couple questions I have:

(hopefully someone in here can answer?)

1) Do fish ever go bad? I don't want to eat/use them if I should keep them for later, and likewise I don't want to sell them if that's not a good use of time vs energy cost, so I'm just curious if I stash them in my chest for later will they ever go "rotten".

2) Do you need to water tree seeds that you plant? I know they randomly fall/plant themselves in rng, but if I want them to grow for next year, do I need to water them ever in game?
 

Fat Hippo

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gmaverick019 said:
just got this game yesterday and I've restarted a couple times (in these kinds of games I hate having a bad start), I've looked up starter guides and I think I've got that part down, but I've yet to find *any* answers online for a couple questions I have:

(hopefully someone in here can answer?)

1) Do fish ever go bad? I don't want to eat/use them if I should keep them for later, and likewise I don't want to sell them if that's not a good use of time vs energy cost, so I'm just curious if I stash them in my chest for later will they ever go "rotten".

2) Do you need to water tree seeds that you plant? I know they randomly fall/plant themselves in rng, but if I want them to grow for next year, do I need to water them ever in game?
1) Nope, fish never go bad. I still tended to sell most of them to supplement my income, since eating them raw doesn't really give you a ton of energy. But you can store all of those that you want to keep in a chest with no worries, as I did with the fish I needed for the community center bundles.

2) I don't think they need to be watered, but they will grow quicker if they have some space around them.

I don't really think you need to worry about having a "bad start" since the game seems pretty forgiving, and unlike Harvest Moon has no end date from what I've heard. So there's really no hurry to get rich quickly or anything like that.
 
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CrystalShadow said:
My biggest complaint with the first one was perhaps that I got married and my 'wife' basically had an instant and sudden shift in both appearance and personality.

(in short, she turned from weird quirky inventor girl into generic farmer's wife - while the game did vaguely acknowledge her background by the fact she creates several inventions to help you, it still felt really weird.)
Yeah, it was super disappointing in the first game when that happened to Ann. :(

At least Karen remained awesome after marriage in Friends of Mineral Town, though.

Anyway, this game is on my wishlist. When I have more time and money (or if it goes on Sale), I'm buying it for sure. I REALLY loved the first Harvest Moon game on the SNES way back when a friend gave it to me in high school, to the point where I felt super proud of creating my perpetual chicken machine. XD

In the meantime, I think I'll just get back to Rune Factory 4.

Actually, on that note, how varied and fun are the various date-able characters in StarDew? I mean, I like RF4, but none of the girls are all that interesting (outside of Dolce, but she's a package deal with the most annoying character in existence. ;_;)
 

Dalisclock

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So I want to complain. I started playing this game just to see what it was like and then somehow an hour and a half of my life disappeared. It's like someone broke into my house and stole my time away.

Seriously, how the hell is this game so absorbing?
 
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Dalisclock said:
So I want to complain. I started playing this game just to see what it was like and then somehow an hour and a half of my life disappeared. It's like someone broke into my house and stole my time away.

Seriously, how the hell is this game so absorbing?
Easy. Games like this give you simple achievable goals and a clear sense of progress as you watch your plants grow, as well and offering a clear path of improvement (More crops = more progress!), and you always feel like you can handle "one more day" before quitting. :p
 
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Dalisclock said:
So I want to complain. I started playing this game just to see what it was like and then somehow an hour and a half of my life disappeared. It's like someone broke into my house and stole my time away.

Seriously, how the hell is this game so absorbing?
personally for me, even though there are obvious timed/time limits on things (crops and such), the game absolutely lets you go at your own pace, so it nails the beginning story immersion with a very relaxing life away from the city, for me that is at least refreshing.
 

The Gnome King

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Fat_Hippo said:
The only real complaint I have so far is that controller support is bit shoddy, so you can't really lie on a sofa or bed and play it from afar. Which would make a lot of sense for this type of game in my opinion.

So, anyone else playing it? What has your experience been so far?
I'm a PC/mouse & KB guy, so controller support doesn't matter to me but I haven't had a chance to play around with this much yet, I've been enveloped in Grim Dawn and my backlog. It looks fantastic and I can't wait to play around with it.
 

DrownedAmmet

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Dalisclock said:
So I want to complain. I started playing this game just to see what it was like and then somehow an hour and a half of my life disappeared. It's like someone broke into my house and stole my time away.

Seriously, how the hell is this game so absorbing?
You think that's bad, I was watching this game stream on the Escapist, and when they ended the stream I said "it can't be over already! It's only been *checks watch* 2 hours!?"

Its a very peaceful game, like Minecraft with a little more life